


Past Mistakes

by glintbladesong



Category: Mass Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glintbladesong/pseuds/glintbladesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes past mistakes come back to haunt us, no matter how good our intentions might be.<br/>Reviews and comments are most welcome and sought after!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers here, just filling out a little of my Mass Effect Universe

"Four in hard cover on the right Commander!" yelled out Tali during a brief lull in the gun fire.

"Got it!" he replied whilst punching out a spent heat clip, "Jack, spook them. Now!"

"Give me cover on 3," Jack called out in acknowledgement, "1, 2, 3!"

Shepard sighted his rifle over the top of the cover and started to lay down a blizzard of covering fire, the sharp staccato punctuated by the deeper thump of Tali's shotgun as both weapons peppered the crates on the far side of the room. Jack gathered herself and flung a shockwave of biotic power towards the crates, violently scattering them and the 4 guards that were using them for cover.  "Die bastards!"

Whilst the guards where disoriented the team mates split for new cover, Tali and Shepard firing into the slowly stirring guards whilst on the move.  Two of the guards managed to survive long enough to get to their feet and dive behind the remains of one of the crates and started firing blindly back at their attackers.

"2 down, 2 in cover," called out Shepard, "Jack?"

"Do it yourself!" yelled back Jack, who was breathing hard behind what looked like a ornamental planter, blood running rather too freely down her arm.

"Shit. Tali, Jack is out, flank them on my call!" called out Shepard.

"With you Commander" she replied.

"Now!" Shepard slid out of cover on his knees and took a swift clean shot at one of the guards that had exposed himself whilst searching for a target. Tali leaped over her crate gracefully and sprinted along the wall and into cover on the flank of the remaining guard who stood and spun to face her, leaving Shepard with a clean shot from his position.

"Clear" called out Shepard as the last guard collapsed. 

"Clear." acknowledged Tali as she moved out of cover to confirm that the guards were no longer a threat.

Shepard stood and ran over to Jack. "How bad?"

"Bad? Fuck, I bleed for the fun of it Shepard," said Jack through gritted teeth, "Son of a bitch that hurts."

"Tali, medikit asap!" called out Shepard. Tali came running over and unhooked the kit from her suit. She pulled Jack's hand away from the wound and applied some rapid set coagulant spray over the area to stop the bleeding.

Jack gritted her teeth and nodded her thanks to Tali before addressing Shepard. "Where to now Commander? I want to get the fuck out of here and find him, it's gone beyond personal now."

Shepard nodded to the lift at the far end of the room. "Up I think. That lift seems to be the only way out of here other then where we came from."

"Lets go then, I want to kill him and soon." growled Jack.

On the way to the lift Shepard picked some unused heat clips from the dead guards and passed them out to Jack and Tali, clipping the rest onto his armour just as the lift activated.

"Did you do that Tali?" he asked, nodding at the lift.

Tali shook her head "No Commander."

"You don't supposed he is coming down to surrender do you?" asked Shepard as he replaced the heat clip in his rifle.

"More fool him if he does, he is a dead man either way" replied Jack, a white wash of biotics flowing over her.

"Yeah, unlikely," agreed Shepard, "Cover everyone!".

The team split and ran into cover, watching the lift as it descended from the top floor down to their level.  A soft, gentle, harmless chime signalled its arrival and as the door opened they all heard the faint buzz of electronics warming up and then out stepped a huge mechanical horror all resplendent in its clinically white armour.

"Mech!" shouted Shepard as he fired off two rounds from his rifle that pinged uselessly against the Mech's shields.  As he dropped his rifle and unclipped his rocket launcher he shouted across to his team mates, "Tali, I want those shields down now! Jack, distract it!"

"Sure! I'll just tell it a joke shall I?" Jack yelled back as the YMIR Mech unleashed a hail of shells against Shepard’s position.  "Oh fuck it!" she sighed before leaping out of cover and firing at the Mech, "Over here you bastard!" 

The Mech rotated around its waist, its shells tracking across the room towards Jack as she dived behind the taxi they had arrived in only a few minutes ago.  Shepard stood up from behind his cover as the Mech was turning after Jack and fired off 2 rockets, both of which flared brightly as they exploded against the Mech's shields.

"Tali! The shields damn it!"

"Working on it!  Keelah, they are rated beyond anything I have see Commander" came the replied, "Hang on!".

Jack swore loudly, throwing herself over a low wall as the taxi she was sheltering behind disintegrated thanks to the 3 rockets the Mech fired into it. With surprising speed it turned back to towards Shepard and unleashed another volley of rockets, catching Shepard in the blast and throwing him 15 feet through the air.

Jack flung her arms out and threw a shockwave at the Mech, stunning it briefly and distracting it from Shepard’s body on the floor. "Tali drop it's shields for fucks sake!" she screamed.

"I'm hurrying! Hang on... its coming up... there got it!" Tali stood and threw a massive overload at the Mech, "Handle that you bosh'tet!"  And with that the Mech’s shields suddenly flared and faded from view.

Tali raised her shotgun and pumped shot after shot into the side of the Mech, hearing the shells chipping away at the white armour as it began to turn back towards a barely conscious Shepard, the sound of its guns cycling up pierced the fight as Jack aimed her weapon at the Mech firing repeatedly into it, desperate to distract its attention away from Shepard.

"You leave him alone you junk pile of crap!" yelled Jack as she jumped over the low wall and hit it with a biotic pull, stopping the Mech in its tracks. Taking advantage of the stunned Mech Tali lowered her shotgun and launched a drone while Jack fired more shots at it. As the drone flew towards it sparking and arcing menacingly the Mech stirred shrugging off the biotic attack and turned back towards Jack who was standing in the middle of the room.

"That’s right you bastard, just you and me." she growled as its arms came up, guns readying.

She crouched and was about to throw herself at the Mech to keep it from Shepard when it suddenly exploded in her face, the detonation knocking her heavily onto her back.  She shook her head and swore as she lifted herself up onto her elbow and looked over at the Mech.  Behind what was left of the it she saw Shepard sitting up on one knee with the rocket launcher held up to his cheek, a trail of smoke coming from out of the barrel.

Tali and Jack both hurried over to him, Jack reaching out and pulling him up to his feet. "Fuck Shepard, sleeping on the job or I'll kill you myself next time".

"Are you hurt Commander?" asked Tali.

Shepard shook his head, "My ears are ringing but I’m fine otherwise, come on lets move."

As they approached the empty lift Shepard looked over to Jack. "Thank you Jack."

"Fuck you Shepard, you can't die until we finish this." she replied gruffly, but none the less she still gave him a small smile.

Once in the lift Shepard checked over his weapons and reloaded the rocket launcher as  Tali busied herself applying a field patch to cover the wound on Jacks arm. Stowing away the launcher Shepard looked over to Tali. "What happened with the shields Tali?"

She shook her head, "I have never seen shields like that before Commander, that wasn't a standard issue Mech. Someone had attached a massive discharge sink onto the Mech that was capable of absorbing any overload attempts thrown at it."

"Oh yay." grumbled Jack.

"Agreed," said Shepard frowning, "so how did my little tech guru manage it then?"

Shepard was sure Tali was blushing underneath her mask and he smiled as she replied, "I didn't target the shields, there was no way I could have dropped them.  I manipulated the Overload to target the control circuits of the new discharge sink instead. I was hoping that who ever installed them was so worried about managing the overload from the shields that they didn't think about protecting the sink itself. So when I overloaded the controlling circuits of the sink, instead of just draining any excess overloaded energy from the shields, the sink drained all of the shield’s energy instead."

"Nice work kid." said Jack approvingly.

"Is this going to cause us problems if there are more of those up here?" asked Shepard.

"No Shepard, my omni tool is configured to target the discharge sinks now and in theory it should cause the shields to drop faster then an overload can traditionally manage."

"Excellent Tali. Now does anyone have any thoughts as to what we are going to find when this lift arrives? This upgraded Mech stuff isn't comforting, where did he get equipment like this?"

"Does it matter? Anything that tried to stop us we kill it, and then we kill him." replied Jack.

"He didn't have any resources like this last time we met, just some Blood Pack mercs so that means he has most likely teamed up with someone else and I don't like surprises." Shepard replied.

"You should have let me kill him last time." grumbled Jack.

As the lift slowly ascended up the interior of the building Shepard figured he had time to see how the other party was going, "I had better check in with Miranda at the bomb site," he told the others, reaching up to his ear to enable his comm system, "Miranda, status report."

"Under control Commander.  Illium security arrived a little while back and got in everyone's way, but Samara scared them off. Grunt, Garrus and Jacob think they have cleared all of the survivors out of the wreckage and Mordin is stabilising the worst of them," reported Miranda over the comms, "most will survive I think, but there are still over two hundred dead here so when you find who did this make sure they know that."

"Understood, Shepard out." He turned to face Tali and Jack, "you heard?"

Tali nodded and Jack clenched up her fists and punched the lift wall, "Fuck it Shepard I should have killed him, they are dead because of me!"

"Stop it Jack, you did the right thing, he did this not you!"

Jack punched the wall again, "Fuck, he is so dead this time! Don't you dare try to talk me out of it Shepard."

Shepard swallowed any reply he might have had and looked over at the lift's display, "Two floors to go, ready?"

Both girls nodded, "Ready."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

[1 Hour before the events in Chapter 1]

Garrus grabbed his arm pulling him along, "Come on Commander, I know the term 'shore leave' isn't in your vocabulary so just consider this a mutiny instead."

"I could have you all shot," mutter Shepard, glaring at Garrus, Grunt and then Jacob in turn.

"Commander you have been wound up tighter then a hormonal Quarian ever since you had that meeting Dr T'Soni," commented Garrus, who faltered for a moment as Shepard gave him a glare that clearly indicated Dr T'Soni was off limits, way off limits, "err, um, so yeah, for the good of the crew we decided you needed to get out and unwind a bit."

"For the good of the crew? All mutineers use that excuse." grumbled Shepard as he read the sign they had just pulled him under, "The Skylight Restaurant?"

"Yeah, Miranda told me they do great seafood." rumbled Grunt happily.

"And apparently the views are amazing at sun down.' added Jacob.

"And if I'm not hungry?" asked Shepard.

"I'll eat your fish then." replied a quite sincere Grunt.

"Look Commander," began Jacob, "you need to just stop thinking about things for a while before it buries you, and we thought a night out with the guys might just help, we didn't mean to upset you."

"Speak for yourself Taylor," commented Garrus, "Miranda made it very clear to me that if I didn't get the Commander here off the ship this evening I would be 'calibrating the latrines' for a week, her words by the way."

"Everyone is a mutineer round here," said Shepard, "Should I even ask why she wants me off my own ship?"

"She mentioned something about a girl’s poker night and not wanting a bunch of louts in the way, I gather EDI was going to be the dealer." replied Jacob.

"Louts?" said Grunt and Shepard simultaneously.

"And what about Joker and Mordin, why aren't they here then?" ask Shepard, "Did Miranda make them honorary girls or something?"

Garrus snorted in amusement, "Nah, Mordin wanted to run a few tests on Joker to see if he could help out with his bones."

"And Joker was okay with that?"

"Dr Chakwas recommended to him that he let Mordin help."

Shepard shook his head as he and his 3 kidnappers walked into the restaurant and as grumpy as he was at his enforced shore leave he had to admit that they had chosen a nice looking place, with open air seating, lots of creams and purples on the walls and stunning views. It had a quiet and refined atmosphere about it and the thought of Grunt trying to fit in here made him smile. Apparently a somewhat similar but less amusing thought had entered into the head of the Asari Maitre d' who looked rather concerned as she approached the new arrivals.

"Errr. May I help you, um, gentleman?" she asked, looking at them as if they were contagious.

"Table for four, under the reservation of Shepard." said Jacob.

The Maitre d’ looked down at her data pad, "Hmmm indeed. Ah yes, Shepard, for four. Your table is waiting sir. Your Krogan will have to wait outside though."

Grunt growled and thumped his chest, "Try and make me."

The Maitre d’ swallowed and, rather bravely in Shepard’s opinion, spoke up, "All bodyguards must wait outside, this is a peaceful establishment."

"Bodyguard! What? Shepard, let me...” but before Grunt could finish Garrus hastily stepped between him, the Maitre d’ and a galactic incident, "I think you must be mistaking my friend here for someone else. Surely you would not refuse the Galactic Ambassador to Clan Urdnot entrance to your establishment?"

Shepard nearly chocked as he tried to swallow a laugh and Jacob threw an exaggeration bow to Grunt who looked like he had just eaten an Asari, or was about to. This however this was still a better look then the one the Maitre d’ had on her face, which had suddenly gone a pasty cyan colour. "Oh I am so sorry your Excellency! Please forgive me, I did not mean to give any offence. If it would please your Excellency to follow me?" and without waiting for an answer she turned and hurried off towards the party's table.

"Ambassador?" asked Grunt.

"Yes your Excellency," laughed Garrus, "Well, I had to do something to stop you exploding."

Shepard wiped tears from his eyes and added, "Let it go Grunt, you might get a better meal out of it."

"Ha! True. Ambassador Grunt. I like it!"

The four of them sat down at the indicated table and were immediately fussed over by an unending number of waiters who poured out drinks, laid out napkins and generally fawned over the 'ambassador' and his entourage. After ordering their meals and shooing away the waiters the guys sat back to enjoy their drinks.

"Ok, so maybe I won't have all of you shot after all." said Shepard as he finished a particularly pleasant green drink from some unpronounceable planet that Garrus had chosen for him.

His three companions smiled, glad to see their Commander loosening up a little and they continued to chat about inconsequential and minor things as the first course was bought out.

"Gods, is that thing even cooked?" remarked Jacob after seeing Grunt's first course which looked like a raw two headed fish, with tentacles.

"It had better not be!" replied Grunt with relish, "Maldovian Sucker Fish is best served raw in warm salty water, or so I read. Never thought I'd ever try one."

"Considering the price of that thing you would think someone would cut it up for you," said Jacob as he watched Grunt, who picked up his meal in two hands and bit into it, tentacles, scales and some unidentifiable liquid all over his chin, "or not. Ugh that is disgusting Grunt!"

"Speak for yourself." replied Grunt after slurping up a tentacle, "this is delicious!"

"Commander" said Garrus in a tone that immediately caused the hairs on the back of Shepard's neck to stand on end.

Looking up from his plate Shepard became very still when he saw Garrus' posture, which looked like a tracking dog that had just picked up a scent.

"There are two humans wheeling a maintenance cart towards us."

"So?" asked Jacob around a mouthful of salad, "probably just going to fix something in the kitchens."

Shepard shook his head, slowly putting his cutlery down and resisting the urge to turn around. "Ever seen a human working here? This is an Asari world. Plus, a place like this would have a tradesman's entrance so as to not to disturb the customers. What’s your read Garrus?"

"Something is definitely fishy," he said, as Grunt burped, "if you pardon the pun."

"Suggestions?" asked Shepard who, like the rest of his team, had suddenly gone off his food. Why couldn't he just have a moment’s peace?

"Not sure, they don't seem to be... DOWN!" Garrus leapt up and flung the table over between Shepard and Grunt. Instead of landing noisily on the floor the table appeared to explode in mid air with a heavy crunching noise which was accompanied almost immediately afterwards by shrieks of panic from the other diners in the restaurant who had all leapt to their feet in confusion.

The group instantly scattered for the nearest cover, all except Grunt who picked up a metal leg from the shattered table and with a ear shattering bellow charged the two maintenance crew who were now standing behind the maintenance cart holding vicious looking shotguns, one of which was still smoking.

Shepard looked up over the top of an indoor garden bed and saw Grunt as he began his charge. Cursing the fact that they had left all of their weapons back on the Normandy he none the less stood up and jumped over the garden bed and threw himself at one of the assassins just as Grunt reached the other and quickly proved that a Krogan with a metal table leg is no match for an assassin with a shotgun.

Garrus came running over holding a chair, quickly joined by Jacob who had found a wickedly sharp carving knife from somewhere. "Move and I'll give you to my Krogan," snarled Shepard at the remaining assassin who, after his flying tackle, he had pinned face down on the floor, "Anyone hurt?"

"Don't be insulting Shepard." replied Grunt.

"We're good" reported Garrus, "area clear."

A crowd begun to gather around the group now that the threat had passed and Shepard order Garrus and Jacob to try to keep them back before turning his attention onto his captive, "Now, who the hell are you!"

The would be assassin struggled underneath Shepard who stood and pulled him roughly to his feet, "I said who the hell are you!"

"Let me ask him" growled Grunt, stepping closer

"Okay! Okay, I'll talk but just keep that thing away from me!" cried out the assassin.

"Thing?!" yelled Grunt.

"Easy Grunt, if he doesn't talk you can play with him later." replied Shepard, "Now, start talking, fast."

Shepard released his hold on the assassin and stepped back to question him when suddenly everything went to hell. The moment he was released the assassin dived onto the maintenance cart and managed to smack his hand down onto a large dull silver metal cube just as Grunt reacted by bringing down the table leg down across the back of his skull with a wet thud. As the dead assassin slid off the cart into a heap on the floor the cube began to emit a high pitch hum which was getting higher and louder very quickly.

"Bomb!" yelled Garrus. "Move!" yelled Shepard at nearly the same time.

And putting actions to words he turned and sprinted towards the balcony. Suddenly the noise stopped and Grunt let out an inarticulate cry, grabbing Shepard and throwing both himself and his Commander over the top of restaurant’s bar just as the device exploded.

...............

"Commander? Commander?"

Why is Miranda whispering, thought Shepard, and why am I laying on the floor?

Shepard groaned as he tried to move, shaking his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts and causing a wave of nausea to wash over him. "Oh, bad idea." he groaned.

"Mordin, he's awake" called out Miranda who seemed to be whispering again, were they in a library he wondered.

Then he felt Mordin's tough leathery fingers probing every sore point on his chest, "Minor trauma. Some bruising. Nothing Serious. Being landed on by the Krogan didn't help. Very lucky. Krogan very heavy when armoured. Of course will need to do full scan on Normandy to assess any cranial damage."

"I'm fine Dr." Shepard groaned.

"Glad you are awake Commander. Need to tend to other patients." And with that Mordin left.

"He has the bedside manner of a Krogan," muttered Shepard. Hang on, he thought, other patients. Patients?

Realization of where he was suddenly came flooding back and he sat up, inducing another wave of nausea and another groan. "Oh, not good. Miranda, report."

"Everyone is fine Commander. I mean Garrus, Jacob and Grunt are alive, but the bomb destroyed most of the restaurant so the casualty list is huge. You sure do dine out in style. What the hell happened here?"

"Someone sent a team to kill us at dinner, hit squad of 2 humans. Grunt killed one and the other managed to trigger the bomb." He rubbed his face hard with his hands, "he set it off knowing he would die. This wasn't a simple mercenary hit."

He looked up at Miranda who was kneeling beside him looking concerned and behind her, parked where the balcony used to be, was the Normandy's shuttle and his crew climbing all over the restaurant’s wreckage. "Not that I am ungrateful, but how did you get here?"

"Garrus called in a report moments after the bomb went off and we got here as soon as we could. Dr Chakwas stayed behind and is prepping the medibay for incoming."

Shepard stood, the effects of the blast slowly wearing off, "Do what you can for the injured Miranda, you have full authorization to use all of the Normandy's facilities."

"Shepard!" call out Tali as she came running over to her commander, "Are you all right?"

"I'll live Tali."

"You need to see this right away Commander." she replied, bringing her omnitool up, "I dumped this from the restaurant’s security feed, I could only get the last 5 minutes before the bomb went off but it is enough."

Shepard watched the video reply on Tali's omnitool and swore quietly.

"Jack!" he called out. Jack came over, covered in rock dust and what looked like blood and Shepard got Tali to replay the video for her.

"What!" she screamed after watching the replay, letting out a huge cry of anger and managing to destroy the single remaining decorative vase that had survived the bomb with a blast of biotics, "Where the fuck is he?"

Tali shook her head, "This is all the video I could salvage, the only other bit I have shows him leaving in a taxi."

Jack spun around, hands on her head, close to losing it, her whole body glowing with biotics.

"Jack! Stand down, now! That is an order!" shouted Shepard.

Jack spun back around to Shepard, the hate in her eyes startling him for a moment, "Fuck you Shepard!"

"I said stand down!" repeated Shepard and then calmly added, "we will find him Jack. Trust me."

Jack clenched her fists, the hate in her eyes subsiding and being replaced by fear which scared Shepard more. "Why won’t they just fuck off and leave me alone?" she pleaded.

Shepard stepped closer to Jack now that she had calmed a little, "Jack listen to me, we will find him I promise you. Trust me, you know I would not lie to you."

Jack stared at Shepard and nodded once, "Your way then Shepard, but we go now."

Shepard nodded back and got Tali to call up EDI on the comms.

"Yes Commander?"

"EDI I need you to find out the destination of a taxi that left the Skylight Restaurant. Tali will upload the details to you."

"Commander, that information is protected within one of Illium's many central mainframes; it is not available to me."

"Hack it EDI, that is what you were built for."

"I must remind you Commander that that is illegal."

"I'm still a Spectre EDI, so consider this authorization. Tali upload the data."

"As you wish Commander,” intoned EDI, “data received. Searching."

Shepard studied the wreckage while EDI was searching for the information he needed, there were dead bodies everywhere and the state of the injured was not much better, many would not live through the night he guessed.

"Commander?"

"What do you have EDI?"

"Taxi number 43554 left the restaurant at the precise time Tali supplied and it carried 1 passenger to The Dawnlight Tower. I have downloaded the location to Tali's omnitool."

"Thank you EDI. Shepard Out."

"Logging you out Commander."

Shepard turned to face Tali, "Tali do you have the data?"

"I have it Commander. The towers are approximately 50 kilometres west of here."

"Jack, can you find transport?"

Jack stormed off without looking at Shepard and climbed up a pile of rubble. At the top she summoned her biotics, throwing her arms out, stopping a passing taxi dead in its tracks and slamming it down onto the balcony next to the shuttle, "Done, now let’s get the fuck out of here."

"Make sure that thing still works and wait for the there." said Shepard as he walked over to where Miranda was co-ordinating the rescue of the survivors, "Miranda, we have a location and we need to go before the trail gets cold."

"Understood Commander. Take Tali with you, her tech will be put to better use getting you into somewhere you shouldn't be then it will be here. And you are taking Jack, aren't you? She seems to have become very disturbed, again."

Shepard nodded, "And with good reason, but I'll explain later. Have you got any spare weapons?"

Miranda pointed back to the shuttle, “your full kit is in there, after we heard of the bomb we assumed you were in some kind of fire fight and bought it with us. That was before we knew you were injured.”

“Thanks, and keep me updated Miranda.” said Shepard, who then jogged over to the shuttle and quickly began to secure his armour, snapping the weapons into place on his back and grabbing a spare shotgun and heavy pistol for Tali and Jack.

Once dressed and armed Shepard called for Tali to join Jack in the taxi and then jumped in after her. He had barely sat down before Jack threw the Taxi into the sky, straining the limits of its inertial dampeners and red lining its engine.

As Shepard held onto the dash he watched other cars, buildings and trucks flash past as blurs, he didn't think it was possible to make a taxi move as fast as this one was moving.

"Commander," called out EDI over the comms, "I have intercepted a radio message coming from the tower I located earlier, someone in there is calling for an off world shuttle to pick them up."

Shepard was positive that the taxi began to pick up further speed when Jack heard that, "Copy that EDI, we are on our way."

"I know Commander, now that I am inside the main frame I can track your progress simply by the location of each traffic violation that arrives. And might I add that they are arriving with alarming regularity."

"Shepard out."

"Logging you out Commander."

Tali pointed to a tall blue tower that had just appeared in front of them as Jack careened around a corner, narrowly missing 2 trucks and another building. "There, that is the Dawnlight Tower, Commander."

Shepard studied the Tower as they approached. It was a blue coloured tower standing apart from the other towers in the area, approximately 20 storeys high with the roof sloping sharply down from the top floor to floor 10, meaning that there was no easy access from the top, they would have to go in from the ground floor and work their way up. As they got closer Shepard noticed something strange about the building, there were no windows. None. Even the ground floor entrance appeared to contain only a single sliding metallic door, it was more akin to a warehouse then a building.

"No windows." Shepard commented to the other two.

"They are hiding something." suggested Tali.

Shepard nodded, "Well they know we are coming if that comms signal was anything to go by. Jack, how about we try the direct approach? That metal door is very large and doesn’t look very strong."

Jack nodded and pointed the nose of the Taxi downwards towards the door.

"Err, right behind you Commander, thankfully," commented Tali as she scrunched down a little lower in her seat behind Shepard.

Jack ducked down below the dash and slammed on the brakes metres before the taxi impacted with the metal door, its own inertial crashing it clear through before coming to a halt inside the Dawnlight Tower. Shepard threw the door open and all three team mates dove for cover as the guards inside began to fire on the taxi. Shepard emptied a clip at them from behind cover as he assessed the layout of the battlefield.

"Four in hard cover on the right Commander!" yelled out Tali during a brief lull in the gun fire.


	3. Chapter 3

Shepard glanced over at his team, seeing Tali tightly gripping her shotgun and Jack with a pistol in one hand and her other hand a closed fist glowing with biotic power. "Okay we go in with a standard coverage pattern, Tali head left and concentrate on any mechs, Jack to the right and support me while I draw their fire. We hit them hard and fast."

Both girls nodded as the lift slowed to a halt and gave off a soft chime. The doors opened and everyone leapt into action, Tali dived out to her left, hitting the ground behind some crates and Jack shot out of the lift to her right. Shepard took two paces forwards and knelt with his finger on the trigger, eyes scanning the room for both threats and available cover.  There was plenty of the latter with crates, tables, chairs and heavy equipment piled everywhere but there was no sign of the former. No threats. Nothing.

"What the hell?" said Jack as she unclenched her fist, letting her biotic flare fade away.

"Commander?" added Tali, looking over at him from behind her cover.

Shepard stood slowly, keeping his rifle raised to his shoulder, and looked around the room.  It appeared to be an assembly area, there were crates stacked all around, some partially assembled machinery that looked uncomfortably like mech parts and some sort of medical lab and been setup in the middle of the room, but there were no guards or doors or windows or lifts other than the one they came up in.  In fact there appeared to be no other way in or out of the room at all. "Move up." he ordered, not willing to believe or risk that the room was as empty as it appeared.

Spaced out in a line across the cavernous room the 3 assailants moved slowly forward, nerves on a knife edge as they searched for the threat.  When he reached the lab setup in the middle of the room Shepard stopped and waved the other two forward, covering their progress towards the back of the room. As they approached the far wall Tali turned to him, "Nothing Commander, this room is empty."

Jack spun around, frantically scanning the empty room with a mixture of desperation and fear in her eyes, "No! Where the fuck is he Shepard? He has to be here. He must!"

Shepard holstered his rifle and shook his head, "I don't know Jack. But he didn't just disappear, if he is not here then there must be an exit somewhere. Relax, we'll find it."  Shepard looked over to Tali and asked her to scan the room for anything unusual as he contacted EDI up on the Normandy. "EDI?"

"Yes Commander?"

"Can you get hold of the plans of this tower? We've come to a dead end."

"Retrieving them now Commander."

"Tali will upload her room scans to you, see what you can find." Sitting down on a desk nearby Tali nodded at him and started typing away on her omnitool.

"Receiving it now Commander. I'll begin comparing the scans to the building plans immediately." said EDI. "Commander, there is something else you need to know, a shuttle is heading your way and my analysis shows a high probability that it is coming in response to the communications sent earlier. Projected estimates place it arriving at your location in 58 minutes."

"Understood EDI," replied the Commander, "Joker? Can you intercept it and persuade it not to make planet fall?"

"Negative Commander, the Normandy's shuttle is on its way up with casualties from the explosion. Miranda is sending them here as we are better equipped than the nearby hospitals to handle the sort of injuries they experienced, apparently." replied Joker.

"Understood. Stay where you are and do what you can for the injured. EDI, contact me as soon as you find anything. Shepard out."

"Understood. Logging you out Commander".

Shepard looked around the room again which was to all appearances a dirty, grimy warehouse which appeared to take up the entire floor of the tower and more importantly all of the equipment that he could see looked like it was small enough to have been bought up via the lift, so where the hell their target had gotten to was a mystery.  Jack was pacing along the outside wall presumably looking for a hidden door, or so he hoped, and Tali was standing in front of a data terminal hacking through the firewalls.  The terminal's screen suddenly flared to life in a wash of pale orange and Tali looked up at Jack before turning to him and beckoning him over with a wave of her hand.

"Commander, you need to see this,' she said quietly.

Looking down at the screen Shepard felt a shiver run through him as he stared at the logo on the screen. Cerberus. Here? That makes no sense he thought. "Tali go through this and see if you can find out what is going on," he asked and looked up towards Jack, "and do it quietly."

Shepard walked over to the nearest table, the equipment on it clearly medical in nature, very advanced by the looks of it and vaguely familiar.  He couldn't figure out where he had come across such equipment before or why it was familiar but something itched at the back of his head, like a dream that you cannot quiet remember after waking. He moved over and looked at the next piece of equipment which looked surgical in its purpose and his sense of dread deepened.  And there was something else, not only was the equipment familiar but their location in relation to each other was familiar too, he had seen a set up like this before somewhere else.  Slowly he turned around, looking at the rest of the equipment. All of the equipment on the tables was medical in nature and all of it familiar too him in a hazy manner.  Beyond them was a mix of heavy industrial equipment, assembly machinery and fabrication units, but none of that seemed to cause the same level of discomfort and familiarity to him.

"Commander?" interrupted EDI.

"Go ahead EDI." said Shepard, bringing his hand up to his ear.

"According to the scans Tali sent up the room you are in is 2 metres too small. Based on the location of the lift I would suggest that the north wall is either false, or unnecessarily thick."

"Hold on EDI." instructed Shepard who looked over to Jack, "Jack. The north wall is fake, there must be an exit there somewhere.  Look at the floor. Look for anything that seems out of place, too much dirt, wheel marks, anything like that."  Jack waved in reply and headed over to the north wall at a jog, eyes scanning the ground.

"Continue EDI."

"I have discovered some further anomalies associated with this building Commander. According to the main frame I am looking at the building's power consumption is off the chart, far beyond anything a building that size should be able to consume. Also it appears to have no registered owner. The main frame's database simple does not contain any data that links this building back to an owner." reported EDI.

"Drug lab, just saying..." muttered Joker in the background.

"Good work EDI, let me know if you find anything else, Shepard out."

"Logging you out Commander."

Shepard looked over the nearby equipment again, shaking his head at the nagging itch that the equipment provoked. Moving over to Tali he watched as she appeared to struggle with the data terminal.  "Bosh'tet!" she swore in frustration, "Sorry Commander, there is a secondary encryption layer here that I can't get past. Someone wanted this data well protected."

"Can you dump the data and send it to EDI to decrypt?" asked Shepard. "We have a time limit here with an inbound shuttle."

Tali nodded, "On it Commander. It will only take a moment."

Shepard patted her shoulder in acknowledgement as he walked past her and headed over to Jack. "Anything?"

"Yeah, there is a door somewhere. You were right, the floor is too dirty here to be anything other than a doorway. But I can't find a way to open it."

Inch by inch the two of them started going over the wall on either side looking for any way to open the door with Jack swearing frequently and her anger becoming more and more pronounced until, "Fuck! Yes!" exclaimed Jack as she levered open a small panel about 2 feet away. Activating the control behind the panel caused a section of the wall to slide open revealing a wide but unlit staircase angling up to the left.

"Tali, we need to move out!" called Shepard as he unholstered his rifle and stepped into the stairwell.  

Tali came running up behind him with her shotgun in her hands and reported to Shepard that the data had been uploaded to EDI. Shepard nodded and cast one more glance around the room before they left, looking once again over the medical equipment arranged in the middle of the room. Medical equipment. Cerberus. Medical. Shit, he though as the itch in the back of his skull suddenly flared into a memory.

"Shit," he said again, this time out loud, "that equipment, I know where I have seen it before. That medical stuff is almost exactly the same set up I remember seeing when they were reviving me during Project Lazarus. What the hell is going on here?"

"Cerberus!?" exclaimed Jack, "It was Cerberus at the restaurant?!"

"So it seems. Something is going on but for now let's just find our target." replied Shepard. "And kill him." Jack spat back verbally.

They ascended the stairwell and Shepard waved Tali over to break the encrypted lock. Tali worked quickly and the lock interface flickered over to green almost immediately. Shepard looked at them both, "Same approach as before, standard coverage pattern. Ready?"

The girls nodded and he touched the control to open the door. Shepard ran forward and knelt as Tali moved quickly to the left looking for cover, Jack doing the same on the right.

That the room was not empty was Shepard's first thought. "Mech!" he shouted as he flung himself forward to duck down behind a solid looking crate, "Tali!"

"There are mercs behind it!" yelled out Jack as she spun into cover behind what looked like old mech parts.

"I'm on it Commander" called out Tali, furiously tapping away on her omnitool. Shepard switched his rifle for his rocket launcher and glanced down quickly as the weapon powered up and saw that he had 3 rockets left in the magazine to bring down the mech before things got problematic.

"Jack, flank to the right and target those mercs, I'll keep the mech off Tali." ordered Shepard over the noise of the merc's ineffectual firing. Then he stood and fired a rocket right into the head of the Mech. That will get its attention he thought as he ran behind Tali to the far left of the room, planning to give Jack as much space as he could.  Predictably the Mech turned to follow Shepard but unpredictably it didn't bring up its guns.  Shepard slid into cover on the far side of the room, bracing for the familiar sound of cannon shells hammering into the cover he was behind but there was nothing, at least not from the mech.

Peering around the edge of his cover he saw Jack advancing down the other side of the room and he watched her throw a huge shockwave into the group of mercs behind the mech.  Five of the seven mercs flew backwards landing heavily, one of which never got the chance to recover as Jack followed up the shockwave with burst after lethal burst of pistol fire.  A quick glance over to Tali showed she was pinned down hard by two mercs who were using the Mech as cover while they peppered her location with rifle and shotgun fire.  Something is wrong, why isn't it firing thought Shepard as he looked back at the mech. It was then that he realised that it wasn't a standard YMIR. Instead it looked like an YMIR with its left arm missing. What the hell is going on thought Shepard.

"Commander, help!" called out Tali as she hid behind her rapidly disintegrating cover. Shepard leaned out from his cover and fired off another rocket. 1 left he thought as the rocket screamed through the air and detonated against the mech's shields, the explosion causing the mercs behind it to pull back. Tali took advantage of the lull and ran over to Shepard, ducking down beside him.

Shepard looked around the corner of the cover again and counted six remaining mercs and watched as Jack dispatched her second before she ducked behind cover. He and Tali stood and ran further along the outside of the room with a barrage of shells from the 5 remaining mercs following them. As they pulled up behind cover Shepard let go of the rocket launcher and drew his rifle, sending a deadly burst into the closest merc, dropping him to the ground.

"Why isn't it shooting Commander?" shouted Tali as she readied her attack.

Damn good question thought Shepard as he sent two more bursts of rifle fire into the remaining mercs. An YMIR Mech is a major headache in a confined space like this, it would rip their cover to pieces in seconds. "Just drop the shields Tali, we are out of room!"

Shepard finished speaking and stood, emptying his rifle clip at the mercs, keeping them suppressed behind the cover they had found.  As soon as the mercs had their heads down Shepard took a hard look at the mech, a sense of disquiet growing.  What is going on here he thought, but before he could find an answer the mech suddenly reared up on its two legs and threw out a biotic shockwave which slammed Shepard, Tali and the crate they were behind hard against the wall.

"Fuck! That bastard is not an YMIR!" Jack yelled across the room as she stood up and sprayed a series of shots at the mercs position, forcing them to continue to keep their heads down, "Shepard?!"

Shepard stood and shoved a still groggy Tali back behind the remaining cover, staggering as a few shells from one of the merc's rifle found their target and smacked into his armour. Throwing himself behind Tali he swore loudly, "What the hell was that?".  Tali shook her head as she tried to clear her senses, "Mechs can't do biotics, it is just not possible." she stated.

Jack slid in feet first behind them after having run around the outside of the room, drawing a fusillade of gun fire from the mercs, "We are in trouble Shepard!"

"Tali, I need those shields down! Jack, suppressive fire on 3, ready? 1, 2, 3". Shepard and Jack stood and lay down a withering barrage of gun fire across the width of the room, scattering the mercs and dropping 2 more of them.  Just then Tali stood and launched her tech against the Mech which thankfully, like last time, caused the shields to flare and fade away to nothing.  

"Yes!" shouted Jack. "Move!" relied Shepard as the mech reared up again in response. Jack and Tali dived to the right and Shepard rolled to the left as another shockwave came barreling through and destroyed their cover.  Shepard holstered his rifle and reached over his shoulder for his rocket launcher, which wasn't there.  Remembering that he had dropped it earlier he looked around frantically and saw it 3 metres away laying out in the open between him and the new mech. He quickly switched tactics and reached for his shotgun instead, pumping 3 shots into the mech and noticing the mercs starting to come out from cover. "Jack, Tali, the mercs!" he called out.

Jack stood and threw another shockwave down the room, rocking the Mech back a couple of steps and throwing the remaining 2 mercs back through the air. Tali complimented Jack's biotic attack with her shotgun, pumping shot after shot into the Mech while Jack successfully targeted the mercs, managing to kill one and forcing the last one to scramble back behind cover.

The mech began to turn, seeking out its latest assailant and Shepard sprinted out from behind his cover and dove at the rocket launcher, rolling over it and coming up into a kneeling position less than a metre away from the side of the Mech that was towering over him, with the launcher primed and ready.  The mech reared up again as it faced Tali and Jack and without hesitation he fired.

The explosion threw Shepard a good 10 metres backwards and the mech toppled over onto the ground in the opposite direct, silent and now nothing more than twisted metal.  Jack used her biotics to raise up the last merc as he appeared from behind his cover and Tali sent him crumpling into the wall with a single blast from her shotgun.

In the aftermath of the battle the room was soaked in a deafening silence as Shepard lay still on the floor wondering which bit of him hurt the most. In his opinion it was a photo finish between his right shoulder and left elbow and slowly he began to turn over onto his back. The explosion had left him a bit shaky and he smacked his left elbow onto the hard metal floor in the process, "Oh we have a winner." he groaned as he collapsed onto his back, looking up to the roof and waiting for the swirling lights to fade from in front of his eyes.

"Um.... pardon Commander?" He turned his head slightly and the swirling lights began to fade and he found himself looking up into the purple mask of his favourite Quarian, "Commander, are you okay?"

He nodded slowly and with Tali's support he managed to make it up onto his feet, feeling battered and bruised but no more the worse for wear then that.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that a rocket launcher was not a close support weapon you dumb fuck." said Jack as she approached, handing to him his launcher while smiling.

Shepard smiled back, "Yeah well, I got its attention didn't I?  Speaking of which, what the hell was that? Tali?"

Tali let go of Shepard and approached the smouldering pile of metal that used to be the mech and activated her omnitool to scan it.  It looked very similar to an YMIR Mech, with the same basic 2 legged structure, the same size and its right arm still contained the standard mass accelerator cannons. However its left arm, where the rocket launcher arm normally existed appeared to have been replaced at the shoulder with a large white 2 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot cube.

"Oh Keelah" said Tali suddenly, backing away from the wreckage, "Keelah," she repeated quietly.

Jack and Shepard both looked at her. "Tali, what is wrong?" ask Shepard.

Tali shook her head in response, bringing her hands up to her mask slowly as she continued to back away from the destroyed mech.

Shepard felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and moved back, putting some space between him and it.  Jack moved over to Tali and grabbed her by the shoulders, "What is it? What's the matter? Tell us!" she asked.

"It… I mean that it is… I mean it is not a...  Oh Keelah! What have they done?" said a stunned Tali. Jack responded by shaking her shoulders "Snap out of it quarian! Talk to us."

"That's enough Jack, stop it. Can't you see she is terrified?" said Shepard, who decided he wasn't feeling very secure himself at this point and he drew his rifle, pointing it at the twisted pile of metal.

"Well, she is bloody terrifying me," commented Jack, still gripping Tali by the shoulders.

Tali finally lowered her hands and shook her head again, "That wasn't a mech Commander," she said, "it was..."

"Commander." EDI's voice cut in over their comms link, causing all of them to jump.

"What?" replied Shepard a little more harshly then he meant.

"I have decrypted the data logs you found in the tower and I must inform you that you are in grave danger. This is a Cerberus operation and they are attempting to fuse biotic power into mechs. According to the notes they had some success with a single working model. Be careful."

"Good timing." muttered Jack.

"We already found it EDI, its scrap."

"Way to go Commander!" interrupted Joker over the comms, "See EDI, I told you they would be okay."

"Does it say how they did it EDI?" asked Shepard.

Tali spoke up before EDI could reply "Commander.  I... I know..."  Shepard walked over to her as she took a deep breath to steady herself. "It wasn't a mech, I mean, the basic shell was an YMIR mech..." she continued.

"But mechs don't have biotics." stated Jack.

Tali shook her head, "No. It wasn't the mech that had the biotics..."

"But that thing threw biotics at us, you saw it." protested Jack.

"It wasn't the mech," persisted Tali, "there... there was something alive inside the mech that was capable of biotics. The entire mech was just a life support and biotic amplifier for whatever was inside."

"What!" said a disbelieving Jack, looking at the mech, "That? But there's no room... what could fit... Oh my god!"

"Commander, Tali is right" reported EDI, "The reports show that all attempts to fuse biotics with mech technology failed so they begun experimenting on Asari by fusing them permanently to huge biotic amps and when that proved to be of a limited success they adapted the amplifiers into the YMIR mech design you just fought."

A look of horror slowly descended over Shepard's face as he spoke, "But the mech isn't big enough to fit an Asari inside…"

"Correct Commander, the lab notes I have here indicate that the researchers discovered that with powerful enough amplifiers only a small amount of organic material was required, provided a consciousness still existed."

"You mean..." began Jack.

"They discovered," continued EDI, "that only the brain, spine and upper part of the central nervous system of an Asari was all that was required to maintain a biotic capability when augmented by amplifiers and life support."

"EDI is correct Commander," commented Tali shakily, "that cube attached to its shoulder is a combination life support system and biotic amplifier and it would appear that the rocket launcher's magazine storage and power supplies were removed to make room for the machinery necessary to contain the... the..."

"The Asari?" supplied Shepard, to which Tali nodded.  

"He dies Shepard, for this if nothing else, he dies," growled Jack, "Try to stop me and you will die to. End of discussion."

Shepard stood very still, mentally struggling to control a rage that was welling up from deep down inside. He couldn't be certain, he decided, that he would even attempt to stop Jack when they caught up with their target. In fact he wasn't all that certain that he wouldn't kill the target himself for this, and that discovery revolted him almost as much as the dead monstrosity in front of him did. Damn, damn and double damn Cerberus.

"How many EDI?" Shepard asked quietly.

"I am sorry Commander, I do not understand the question."

"How may Asari died?"

"The notes contain references to 38 separate instances of what they referred to as organic mech supplements. We can assume that the true number is somewhere upwards of that figure."

"Shepard out," he growled and turned to his squad, "There is a shuttle inbound so we move out, now."

The 3 of them checked their weapons and moved over to the far wall to where the bodies of what they now knew to be dead Cerberus soldiers had fallen during the fight. Behind the corpses there was another lift which opened as they approached.  Stepping inside revealed a control panel with only one button, labelled 'Top'.

"I guess we know where we are going then." commented Shepard as he pressed the control.

"Yeah, into hell" said Jack.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies about the layout for this hcapter. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the extra line breaks removed. It kept insisting on adding them in there.

Shepard turned to Tali as the lift began its ascent. "You ok, Tali?"

 

Tali looked up and nodded, "I’ll be okay Commander, it was just a shock learning what they had done to that poor Asari."

 

"You remember what happened on Aite don't you?" ask Jack to no one in particular.

 

Shepard nodded, the similarities between what Cerberus was doing here by trying to merge mechs with living biotic tissue and with the experiments they were carrying out on Aite by attempting to merge a human consciousness with a VI and already occurred to him, as had the near disaster it had caused.  "They never learn do they," he growled, "and I am getting very sick of Cerberus playing God with the lives of innocent people, human or alien."

 

"They are a fucking stain that should be wiped from existence!" spat back Jack.

 

"I agree with Jack Commander, although I would not have put it quite like that. They are terrorists." added Tali.

 

"I know how you both feel," said Shepard, "and you know I agree with you Tali, but I can't see that we have any other choice at the moment. No other organisation has the resources that Cerberus is willing to provide us to help stop the Collectors. We have to work with them, but that does not mean we will work for them."

 

Tali looked at him. "And that excuses this?"

 

Shepard looked at them both and slammed a new heat sink into his assault rifle. "No. This stops now, with us."

 

Both Jack and Tali nodded in reply and rechecked their weapons as the read out on the lift control panel flashed, indicating that they had nearly arrived at the top floor.  As the lift slowed to a halt Shepard faced the door and raised his rifle up to his shoulder before quickly glancing to his two team mates either side of him. "Ready?"

 

"Right behind you Commander," replied Tali.

 

"To Hell and back," added Jack.

 

The lift door slid open and before he could react Shepard immediately registered two things. The first was that the lift opened into a very long corridor that was no wider then the lift doors and the second was that they were in trouble, the painful stuck in a fire fight without cover kind of trouble.  Some way down the corridor some 20 metres away there was a makeshift barricade of tables and crates, behind which were 8 Cerberus guards and in the instant that it took all of this to register six of the eight guards had already started firing, the shells from their rifles depleting his shields at an alarming rate.  However, the almost continuous urban style combat he and his team had been experiencing since he returned to the land of the living had sharpened their responses to a supernaturally lethal level.

 

Tali immediately threw her drone out and sent it down the corridor, using it as a shield to block the guards line of sight and to provide the team with a small amount of cover. Nearly as quickly Jack leapt past Shepard and let out a blood curdling scream as she sprinted down the corridor.  Shepard followed immediately behind her, firing round after round into the barricade to distract the guards. With the guards distracted Jack raced up to the barricade and blasted it apart with her biotics, sending the guards, crates and tables skidding down the corridor.

 

As soon as the barricade was cleared Shepard targeted, and dropped, two guards in as many seconds with Jack taking care of a third.  One of the other guards by then had managed to get up onto his knees and was levelling his weapon at them, a stubby-nosed ugly looking weapon that was connected to two large tanks on his back.

 

Shepard jerked his rifle around to target the new threat, “Flamer!” he warned, but before he could fire Jack reacted, grabbing the guard with her biotics and slamming him viciously up against the ceiling and releasing him to crumple onto the floor, a pool of flammable liquid spreading out around him.  As the unfortunate guard hit the ground a further two guards regained their senses and began to return fire, the shells from their rifles finding their target, knocking Shepard backwards and collapsing his shields. Tali and Jack were crouched against the smooth corridor wall by this time and returned fire, the confined space and lack of shelter meant that nearly every shot was hitting its target.  Unfortunately the same was true for the returning fire from the four remaining guards and with his shields as good as gone Shepard quickly switched over to his shotgun, the ferocious short range power of the weapon an advantage in the corridor, and charged.

 

Staggering twice as shells smacked into his body armour he quickly closed the distance between himself and the guards. He brutally whipped the first guard across the face with the stock of the shotgun before spinning around to face the second and jamming the barrel into the guard’s torso. The woof of expelled breath from the guard was drowned out by the sharp bark of the shotgun as he pulled the trigger and sent the dead guard flying back into the third guard, both guards collapsing against the wall.  Even before the bodies of the two guards had a chance to come to rest Shepard was moving again, turning, dropping to his knee and firing a second shot directly up into the face of the last guard standing who, just before getting a shotgun to the face had managed to get off a single shot that passed harmlessly over Shepard’s head.  He stood slowly and was catching back his breath from the adrenaline rush when a sudden burst of pistol fire behind him caused him to whip around with his rifle raised, only to see Jack firing into the two guards who were still alive but unconscious on the ground.

 

"Jack!" Shepard shouted.

 

Jack holstered her pistol and looked hard at Shepard, her lean tattoo covered figure covered in sweat, and shrugged, "They were Cerberus and now they are dead. Their fault."

 

He shook his head. “They were no threat!” he snapped at her, but he left it at that not willing in their current situation to argue the point and instead was about to order her to check for an exit when Tali spoke up behind him.

 

"Commander..." she whispered just before she leant back against the wall and slump down onto her knees.

 

"Tali!" responded Jack and Shepard together. Jack moved the quickest and grabbed the Quarian's shoulders just as she started to fall forwards onto the floor. Shepard was only a moment behind and he dropped to his knees in front of her, quickly noticing the blood running down her hip and leg. Too much blood he thought and all of it appearing to be coming from a jagged hole in her armour just above her left hip. Hurriedly he grabbed the first aid kit off her belt and as he was sorting out it's contents Jack too noticed the torn suit and blood and swore loudly. Holding Tali by the shoulders Jack started to speak to her while Shepard was readying the suit patch. "You hold on Quarian you hear me? You are a fighter, so you bloody well fight," and then quietly, in almost a whisper, she added, "behind that mask you can never stop fighting."

 

By then Shepard had found a tube of antibiotic gel and had figured out how to work the suit patch which was designed for Quarian suit breaches. Working fast he squirted the entire tube of gel directly into the wound and then tried to ignore the cry of pain he caused as he sealed the hole in her environment suit with the repair patch.  The final thing he did was to administered a dose of medigel to help get her back on her feet. "Jack, perimeter defence quickly," he ordered as he closed up the first aid kit, "Tali, can you stand? We have to keep moving."

 

Jack moved off down the corridor after seeing Tali nodding and Tali put her hand on the ground and attempted to push herself up. The effort and strain was clearly to much and Shepard had to reach out to help her up. Once up on her feet it was obvious that she was not able to stand unassisted as her left leg seemed unable to support her weight.  Gritting his teeth Shepard swore and made the only decision he could make, the lives of his crew came before the mission, "Jack! We need to return to the Normandy."

 

"Like hell!" Came back the reply from down the corridor. "Run away if you must but I am finishing this."

 

Shepard looped Tali’s arm over his shoulder. "Jack, please! Tali needs the medibay."

 

There was silence from the other end of the corridor for a moment before Jack let out a sudden torrent of language that would have made a Krogan blush and came storming back down the corridor towards the Commander. "I am not going to fucking forgive you for this Shepard!"

 

"She needs help Jack."

 

"That is the only reason I haven't shot you already. Come on lets go!"

 

Shepard started to head back to the lift when Tali spoke up, "No. Commander, I'll be alright. Please."

 

"Tali, you can't stand!"

 

Tali reached out, placed her hand against the wall and let go of her Commander as she pushed herself upright, unsteady on her feet and visibly shaking but standing none the less, "I will make it Commander."

 

Shepard shook his head, remembering what Grunt said about Quarians being tougher then humans, "Damn it Tali, you are in no condition to fight."

 

"No, but I still have Chikktika and we need to stop this," she looked over to Jack, "Jack needs to stop this."

 

Jack shook her head and walked back to Tali, "Why do this Quarian? You owe me nothing."

 

"Because behind our masks we are always fighting Jack," replied Tali quietly, "both of us."

 

Jack was silent for a moment and she looked hard at Tali before nodding once and replying brusquely, "Don't think for a moment this means I will go easy on you when we play poker Quarian."

 

Shepard looked from Tali to Jack muttering, "why do the woman on board my ship never listen to me?" Then he spoke up, "okay, Jack take point and Tali, stay behind Jack and me, keep your head down and use that drone of yours. If we are going to do this then we need to move out now, we are out of time."

 

Jack nodded and moved ahead with her pistol raised and her biotics flaring while Shepard started slowly after her with Tali limping along behind him.

 

Before long Jack stood in front of a pair of locked doors at the end of the corridor and waited for them to catch up to her. "EDI said that the building plans showed that this is the last room in the building,” said Shepard as he caught up to Jack, “if he is still here he is on the other side of this door somewhere. Tali, can you manage the door?"

 

Tali nodded at Shepard, moved up to the door and activated her omnitool to override the lock's security mechanism.  As the lock flashed to green Tali starting coughing violently and doubled over against the wall. Both Jack and Shepard moved towards her but she waved them back and slowly straightened, "Just a belly ache Commander, I'm okay, I've had worse." she said in a strained voice.

 

"Liar" replied Jack who reached past her and slapped the lock control, opening the doors.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Garrus, Joker reports that the shuttle is inbound. Are the next group of patients ready for evac?" called out Miranda after she had finished her conversation with the Normandy.

 

"Ready and waiting" came back the reply from the other side of a large pile of building rubble.

 

Miranda closed her eyes and took a deep tired breath, rubbing her hands over her dusty grit covered face. With the majority of casualties being handled by the local medivac teams and the most life threatening burn victims already onboard the Normandy being cared for by Dr Chakwas, their work here was, thankfully, nearly done.

 

"And just what in the name of the Goddess is going on here?" she heard a voice behind her demand. Miranda sighed when she heard that, looks like what ever passes for the local authority around here has finally decided to show up she though, oh well, better late then never.  She turned around in time to see a uniformed officer marching over to her.

 

"Care to tell me why one of Illium's best restaurants has been reduced to rubble?" The officer demanded as she approached Miranda.

 

Miranda smiled sweetly at the officer. "Ah, Illium's finest here to protect us, you must be Officer....?"

 

"Tanika, Officer Tanika, and you are?"

 

Miranda ignored the question and instead replaced her smile with a scowl so dark that it had the immediately effect of silencing the officer. "Officer Tanika, now that you are here I suggest you do your best to protect us by keeping the public and yourselves out of the way and let us finish the rescue effort."

 

"What?" snapped back Officer Tanika, "and why don't I place you under arrest until we sort this mess out."

 

"This mess IS being sorted out, no thanks to you, your police force and their conspicuous absence," replied Miranda dismissively, "now get out of my way and stop being stupid." I am too tired and far too worried about Shepard to deal with this nonsense she thought.

 

Miranda turned on her heel and started to walk off as Tanika reached out and grabbed her shoulder. In a blur Miranda spun back around, slapping the officers hand off her shoulder and pushing Tanika onto the ground with a burst of biotics. "Hands off, you thin blue line!" she snapped, taking a step towards the grounded officer.

 

"Commander," came a soft and strong voice from behind her, "perhaps I can help?" Samara moved up alongside Miranda, "I will handle the officer Commander, you need to be with the rescue team where your abilities will do the most good."

 

Miranda nodded her thanks. "Yes, you are right Samara, thank you.  She is all yours Justicar."

 

Leaving the officer to Samara she turned and headed over to Jacob who was zipping up another body bag. "How many Jacob?" she asked.

 

"Too damn many sir." he replied. "This one makes 38."

 

She called Garrus over to join them and asked for his report. "We already have 6 on the Normandy, 5 more are ready to be loaded when the shuttle returns and the medivac teams are taking care of the other 57. Including all of the bodies that we have recovered that, according to the staff, accounts for everyone in the restaurant," reported Garrus, “except for the Commander.”

 

Miranda nodded her thanks and wondered how their Commander was fairing.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Keelah" croaked Tali as they looked into the room.

 

"Well, we knew that is wasn't going to be a fucking garden didn't we, but what the fuck is this?" said Jack.

 

The room was silent and the only light source was a soft red glow that was coming from the numerous large upright tanks that formed two rows down the centre of the room. Dark and disturbingly familiar shadows could be seen floating inside the tanks. Tali broke the silence that had fallen over the team with a painful groan that ending in a hacking cough and Shepard snapped himself out of his shocked state and began to scan the room for threats.  Luckily there appeared to be little in the way of immediate danger and aside from the tanks there were only a few tables in the middle of the room and on the far wall away from them there was what appeared to be an observation room which featured a large window that overlooked the tanks and reflected their own images back at them.

 

"See anything Jack?" asked Shepard, his rifle still up against his shoulder and pointing into the room.

 

"Nothing, looks empty," replied Jack, "but what the fuck are these?"

 

Shepard moved slowly out of the lift and over to the nearest tank and looked closely at the horror inside. The soft red glow from the tank revealed an Asari body suspended within the fluid, or more correctly it revealed most of an Asari body. The tank contained only the head and chest of the unfortunate Asari with tubes of varying thickness and colours protruding from her abdomen, connecting to monitoring devices attached to the side of the tank and on her head was what looked like a tight rubber cap festooned with a mass of wires that snaked up to the top of the tank.  Shepard looked over at the next tank and saw the larger bulk of a Krogan in a very similar state, its head and torso the only organic parts inside the tank. Moving slowly down the row revealed that each tank contained similar horrors and that all of the test subjects were either Asari or Krogan.  Some were just torsos suspended in fluid and some appeared to be complete bodies and in addition to the tubes and life support machinery a number of both the complete and incomplete bodies had what appeared to be mechanical limbs of various complexity attached in place of their arms.

 

"I would guess that these are the previous organic mech supplement experiments that EDI mentioned," supplied Tali, barely above a whisper, "It would make sense to assume that this is where they experimented on integrating the bodies into the mechs."

 

The short sentence seemed to exhausted Tali and she coughed again, for longer this time and Shepard had to support her to stop her falling over. "Tali?"

 

"It is okay Commander, the antibiotics are just taking time to kick in."

 

"I can't risk that Tali, he have to..."

 

"No, I'll be ok Commander" insisted Tali between further bouts of coughing and she pulled herself away from Shepard to stand upright.

 

Everyone was disturbed by what they saw with even Jack looking pale underneath her tattoos as she supported Tali by the elbow. "Are they alive?" whispered Jack to no one in particular.

 

Tali shook her head, "I suspect that these are the failed experiments. If we are lucky then the only successful experiment would have been the one they put into the mech downstairs."

 

"And if we are unlucky?"

 

"Then several of these tanks may still have alive victims inside them,” coughed Tali, "or worse, EDI was wrong and there is another of those Mechs in here."

 

"Wonderful" muttered Jack, checking behind herself.

 

The group continued further into the room, moving down the middle of the aisle between the rows of tanks. "That is far enough Shepard" boomed a voice that seemed to emanate from all around them.  Instantly Jack let go of Tali and took a step in front of her while at the same time Shepard spun to face the rear and stepped up behind Tali, the two of them protecting her as much as possible.

 

"Report" he said when he saw that there was no danger behind them.

 

"Nothing Shepard, its clear," replied Jack, "I can't see him."

 

"Same" responded Shepard.

 

"I knew you would come to stop me. I tried to stop you in the restaurant you understand, but you came anyway. You really should have stayed away" said the disembodied voice calmly.

 

"WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!" the voice screamed at them suddenly and then it began to sob. "It has to be worth something, why can't you see that? You let me go just so you could torment me. I know you did. Tormenting me all this time just like all the others. Keeping me alive so they could torment me further. Causing so much pain. So much pain. IT HAS TO BE FOR A REASON! Why couldn't you just leave me alone?"

 

Shepard spoke to the room, "You exploded a bomb in the middle of a crowded restaurant Aresh. You killed a lot of people."

 

"YOU DID THAT!" screamed Aresh in reply, "If you hadn't followed me everything would have been ok. But nobody ever leaves me alone. You just had to leave me alone. But you didn't, I had no choice. I had to stop you. You made me do it! I couldn't let you interfere. I had to stop the pain."

 

"And is this how you are stopping the pain? By torturing innocent people, by dissecting them?!" shouted Shepard when the ranting had stopped.

 

"After everything they put me through, if I could just get the experiments to work. Don't you see? It would have..."

 

Jack shook her head angrily and interrupted the pleading, "But why Cerberus you dumb fuck? After everything they did you ran back to Cerberus? You must be insane!"

 

"No, no, no, you don't understand, they came to me. They told me I was right, they wanted to help make it all mean something. They wanted to help."

 

"HELP!?" Jack cried out, "Gah!! You blind motherless varren! Are you truly so stupid as to think that?"

 

"Enough Jack," order Shepard, "Aresh, Cerberus was the cause of your pain, why are you helping them do this? How many innocent lives have you butchered in this Frankensteinien nightmare?"

 

"It was for a purpose!" shouted Aresh hysterically over the speakers, "I was helping humanity. I was doing good! They told me I was. They said they were finding a way to fight the Reapers. And I never touched humans, never, just the aliens. They showed such promise, it would have worked. But they fought. They always resisted. Why did they fight? Why? It was for a purpose, they were helping. I tried to explain that, but they just kept fighting me. If only they had stopped fighting. It was their fault they died, they wouldn't stop. I had to kill them. I had too, you see that don't you?" Aresh stopped talking for a moment and Shepard and Jack looked at each other, both nodding.  Gently Jack rested Tali against one of the tables in the middle of the room and slowly both she and Shepard approached the observation room just as Aresh started speaking again, he sounded calmer then before although no more rational. "So we found more, so many more and explained it to them again and again, but they fought. THEY WOULDN'T STOP FIGHTING! So many died because they wouldn't stop, it was their own fault! But I how could I stop? Their deaths had to be worth something, they had to have a purpose, it shouldn't just be wasted. It must not be wasted. It can't be. It isn't right. So I had to stop you, you would have wasted everything. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST GO AWAY!  Oh god..."

 

They heard sobbing over the speakers and Shepard looked over at Jack again as they approached the observation room slowly. They had gotten to within a couple of metres of the room when Aresh finally noticed them. "Stop right there! This entire building is rigged to detonate. Cerberus insisted that there had to be a way to hide everything, to bury it all to keep it out of the hands of the Reapers. Come any closer and I will set it off."

 

Shepard froze and looked over at Jack, who shrugged at him.

 

"And then what will it all be worth Aresh? All this work lost just like Aite. Is that what you really want?" asked Shepard.

 

"Don't talk about Aite! You blew up Aite. You tried to destroy everything. You stopped me from finding a purpose there!"

 

"But we let you live Aresh, we didn't try to kill you."

 

"That bitch did! She was going to, I remember. But she was weak, she let you stop her. You wanted me to live just so you could torment me."  Shepard shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but Aresh continued. "Don't lie to me! I know you have been hunting me. Ever since Aite you have been chasing me, wanting to torment me. Never leaving me alone! I KNOW! But Cerberus said they could keep me safe. They showed me how they could track your ship so I knew where you were. All they asked was that I help with their experiments. But I always kept a watch on you, I knew you would come for me. And you did! You did! Just like I knew you would. When I saw your ship arriving on Illium I knew I was right! I knew you were coming for me. You want to torment me. I had to stop you."

 

"You idiot!" snapped Jack, "We were never after you. After Aite I never even gave you a second thought. I hoped never too see or hear from you again. Shepard was right on Aite, you were not worth it."

 

"NO! Stop lying! You have been hunting me. I am important! Cerberus knows that. They need me! That is why you have been hunting me! You are scared of me. Cerberus helped keep me safe."

 

"And you call this safe Aresh? Jack is right, we were never looking for you. We didn't even know if you had made if off Aite before Jack blew up the facility"  countered Shepard, discreetly pointed towards the side entrance to the observation room, indicating to Jack that she should try and get there.

 

"LIES! All of it lies!" screamed out Aresh.

 

"Not lies Aresh, why would I lie? You are not important. You never were. Not on Aite and not here, not to Cerberus, you were just something to be experimented on" replied Shepard, trying to keep Arish’s attention away from Jack.

 

"NO!" yelled Aresh in a rage, "I am important! All that pain, it meant something because I survived it! I am strong. You ARE scared of me, that is why you were hunting me."

 

"Scared of you? Don't make me laugh. I have faced down Thresher Maws on foot and you think I would waste my time being scared of you? A space hamster is more terrifying then you" goaded Shepard in an attempt to keep Aresh’s attention focus solely on himself while Jack moved out of sight and over to the door.

 

"NO! Look at what I have done! I have given biotics to mechs! I am the genius that made this possible. ME! I am ..." but before he could finish his rant Jack opened the door and threw him against the wall with her own biotics, knocking him unconscious.  Shepard rushed into the room as soon as he heard the door sliding open and arrived in time to witness Jack kicking Aresh repeatedly as he lay on the floor unconscious.

 

"You insane pathetic worm" she screamed at him, punctuating each word with a kick. "Why. Why. WHY!"

 

Shepard grabbed Jack by the shoulders and pulled her away from the limp body on the floor. She spun around at his touch and raised her pistol pointing it into his face. "Don't!" she warned.

 

"Put that down Jack" ordered an unflinching Shepard.

 

Jack shook her head and kept the pistol aimed at his face. "I told you what I was going to do Shepard."

 

"He is not worth it Jack."

 

"You said that once before and I listened to you then and look what a fuck load of good that did! You've seen what he has done."

 

Shepard nodded, "So we hand him over to the Alliance. He will never be free to do anything again."

 

Jack shook her head firmly, "No. He dies. He doesn't deserve to live."

 

"And yet everyone at that restaurant did deserve to live. Will you hand them their lives back after you hand Aresh his death?" asked Shepard quietly.

 

"Damn you Shepard. You know that it is not about that."

 

"Then what is it about Jack? Revenge?"

 

"Why the fuck not?" countered Jack.

 

"Then take your revenge on Cerberus.  We blow this place sky high and they will never be able to use any of this."

 

"All those people at the restaurant are dead because I let him live."

 

"And how does killing him help them?"

 

With her pistol still pointed at his face Jack slowly backed away from Shepard and once she was out of his reach she pointed the pistol at Aresh. "It helps" she replied.

 

"Jack, please" came a voice from the doorway.  Tali was leaning against the door frame, shaking as she drew breath to speak. "I..." was as far as she got before collapsing unconscious onto the floor.  Shepard ran over and rolled her onto her back and it was only then that he noticing the trail of blood that lead from where they had left her in the middle of the room to her unconscious body. "We have to leave now Jack!" he said before contacting the Normandy, "Joker! One down. Emergency medical attention required. We need evac and medical support now."

 

"Shit!" exclaimed Joker as his Commander's voice barked through his headset, "The shuttle is still at the bomb site Commander. Hang on."

 

"Tali can't hang on Joker. We need evac now!"

 

"Tali? Shit! EDI is talking to the shuttle now Commander. They were just about to leave to bring the last of the bomb victims back to the Normandy, they will divert immediately to pick."

 

"Understood and where is the other shuttle?"

 

"I am already on it Commander. Since our shuttle isn't coming directly back to us, we'll come over and meet it. We might just scare off the other shuttle on the way."

 

"Agreed. Scare it off Joker and come pick us up. Shepard out." He turned and look up at Jack. "Jack I'm going to need you to find the remote trigger for the explosives and then help me get Tali out of here."

 

Jack looked at Shepard as she stepped backwards into the observation room and shook her head, a haunted look in her eyes.  "We are always fighting" she whispered as she reached over and activated the door control, locking herself inside.

 

"Damn it Jack!" Shepard went to stand but a weak groan from Tali reminded him of his priorities.  He tore open the first aid kit, emptying the contents all over the floor before grabbing two tubes. First he gave her a shot of antibiotics and then another dose of medigel which appeared to do nothing at all as she slipped back into unconsciousness.

 

“Hold on Tali” he urged.

 

"Commander, this is the Normandy Shuttle. We are enroute, ETA to your location is 5 minutes."

 

"If you are not here within 2 minutes pilot you will be cleaning out Grunt's latrine for a month" responded Shepard as he slid his hands under Tali's body and stood up with her in his arms.

 

"Sir! Yes Sir!" the pilot responded.

 

"Enough Jack!" Shepard shouted loudly, "the shuttle is enroute and we have to get Tali to the Normandy. We have to go now!"

 

The door remained disappointingly closed and Shepard shook his head. He knew he should wait, he had never left anyone behind during a mission before if he could help it, there was always a another way, but he suspected that this may be the exception that proved the rule. Jack went so far beyond stubborn sometimes that short of knocking her unconscious he did not think he would be able to change her mind; he suspected he had lost her.  He also knew he couldn't wait any longer as it was vital he got Tali the medical attention she needed immediately before the blood loss alone became fatal so he turned towards the lift with Tali in his arms, furious at Jack for forcing his hand like this.

 

Shepard cast one last look at the observation room before leaving and then looked down at the unconscious form slumped in his arms, how could it all go so wrong, he asked himself as he headed towards the lift.

 

He had made about 10 paces when suddenly an anguished scream and several pistol shots shattered the quiet that had descended over the laboratory and he looked back over his shoulder just in time to see the door to the observation room slide open.


	5. Chapter 5

The first thing that registered with Shepard as the door opened was the loud, persistent and repetitive whooping noise that fame from within the room. The second thing that registered with him was Jack, standing in the doorway with her face hidden within its own shadow, her body dramatically backlit by the observation room's control panel which was lit up in bright and alarming shades of orange and red.

"Jack.." began Shepard, but whatever else he was about to say was forgotten as Jack took two steps forward out of the doorway.  As poor as the lighting was outside of the observation room, now that Jack was out of the shadow caused by the glowing control panel it was easy to see her face in the coming from the glow of the tanks, the soft red glow that showed the blood that was splattered across her face as smooth reflective black smears.  It also didn't take long to notice that her upper body and arms where similarly covered in blood that Shepard assumed was not her own.

"Jack, what the..." was as far as Shepard got the second time before Jack cut him off.

"5 minutes and this place burns in hell Shepard," she growled as she stormed past him towards the lifts.

Shepard looked back into the observation room at the crumbled form of Aresh's body that was still lying in a heap against the blood spattered wall and his eyes filled with sadness, but it was not for Aresh.  Shifting Tali in an attempt to find a more comfortable position for her in his arms he started moving again towards the lift.  He stopped just as he reached the lift doors and looked over at Jack who was already inside standing very still and staring at the back wall. 

"So we have now become what we hate, is that it Jack?" asked Shepard quietly. "Killing out of hate and fear is something Cerberus is good at. Is that what we are now Jack?"

"You should know, you're their lap dog aren't you?" spat back Jack.  "Either get in the damn lift or stay and burn for all I care, I'm not waiting."

"Does that go for Tali too?" asked Shepard gently.

Jack turned and looked down at Tali who lay slung across Shepard’s arms. "Tali? No, she... fuck it, yes, yes it does. I tried it your way Shepard and look what happened. I trusted you. I relied on you and look what happened! No more. Everyone always wants to use you for something if you let them. No more."

"Then press the damn panel and get the hell out of my sight," snapped Shepard, playing the last card he had. "I thought you were strong, possibly the strongest person I had met, but it seems I was wrong. You are so full of swagger and bravado on board the Normandy while you are safe and secure in your little den in Engineering but as soon as something difficult turns up, something that you need to fight for, you just crawl right back into your shell and give up. So go ahead and press the damn controls and disappear, leave Tali and me here and persuade yourself that you did it because you are strong. Because from where I am standing it sure looks like you are running away. And it damn well looks to me like you are taking the easy way out because you haven’t the balls to actually stand up and fight your fears."

"Don't you dare..."

"Don’t I dare what?" demanded Shepard. "Don't I dare call you a coward for turning tail and running way? Or don't I dare call you frightened, just because you act like a little girl whenever you are faced with your past rather then standing up to it and demand that it stops ruling your life? Or don't I dare judge you, just because you are willing to leave behind someone who risked her life to help you? Or don't I dare call you a murderer, just because you shot an unconscious person in cold blood!" Shepard was at full volume by now, throwing all of his frustration, all of his anger and his best sergeant’s voice at Jack. "Don't YOU dare tell me what I cannot do Jack, not while you are standing there in that lift with his blood dripping down your face."

The sheer force of Shepard's anger hit her like a hammer and she found herself taking an involuntary step back away from him. She raised a hand to her face and ran a finger across her cheek and then looked down at her blood smeared hands and forearms as if noticing the blood for the first time.

So much blood, she though, my life is just so much blood and what has it achieved?

 _Everything,_ she heard another voice say _, it has kept you safe, everyone wants to use you._

Shepard doesn't.

 _Doesn't he? He wants you to be someone other then yourself, he wants you to stop fighting_. 

No, he wants me to stop killing.

 _There is no difference! A dead enemy is no threat, their warm blood on your hands proves you are alive._

I don't want their blood on my hands.

 _It is who you are, the blood of all those children on Pragia bought you your freedom and your life._

Shut up! They were attacking me! I had no choice!

 _Really?_

Yes!

 _But it still felt good didn't, all that killing. It made you feel so warm didn't it._

Stop it!

 _You know you should have killed Aresh on Pragia. Shepard stopped you and look what happened. The blood of all those people in the restaurant are on your hands, just like Aresh's is now._

STOP IT!

 _You kill everyone who threatens you, it makes you feel good, it keeps you safe._

No!

 _It is who you are!_

No it isn't! They made me this way!

 _Cerberus helped you didn't they, helped you became strong, helped you to kill!_

NO! Cerberus has never helped me!

 _You are what Cerberus killed so many children for Subject Zero, you are the proof that it was all worth something._

NO! I am Jack! I am NOT Cerberus' creation. No more. Never again. I don't want to be controlled by them, ever!

 _You don't want to stop, all your life you have been running away from the fact that Cerberus made you and you like it what they did. You don't know how to stop do you._

Enough! No more. Please, no more, just leave me alone.

She lifted her head up and looked back at Shepard, all of the fight and all of the anger gone from her eyes, pleading, "I, I don't, I can't.... what do I do? How do I stop it?"

Shepard stepped into the lift and kicked the control panel with his foot. As the lift began its descent he faced Jack and spoke, "Hoe do you stop it? Well, for one you stop hating yourself. For two, you stop hating everyone else. And for three, you figure out how to let go of your past. And you do all that by taking it one day at a time. And most importantly, when Tali is on board the Normandy and she is safe you come with me somewhere quiet and private and we will get very drunk together while I tell you about Akuze, about how to let go and about how to not wake up in the middle of the night screaming because the past is trying to consume you." And then more gently he said, "You are not the only one who has nightmares Jack."

Jack nodded her head slowly, a tear running down her cheek creating a single clear track through the blood.

The lift stopped and the silence was broken as everyone stepped out. Shepard began running as fast as he could across the room without jolting Tali too much, followed closely by Jack. At the bottom of the stairs they raced across the open room, past the destroyed Mech and into the second lift, acutely aware that time was ticking away for both them and, more importantly, for Tali.  Once inside Shepard leant back into the corner of the lift holding Tali while Jack hammered on the control panel, "Come on you stupid thing, move!"

Shepard closed his eyes as he leant against the wall, breathing hard.  A combination of the recent fighting, the wounds received, the subsequent adrenaline withdraw, the concern for Tali, the distinct possibility that moments ago that Jack was going to kill them and the buried past of his Akuze nightmares whirling around in head had left him drained and exhausted, and the dead weight of Tali in his arms was becoming difficult to hold.  He took a slow deep breath and gritted his teeth as the lift descended, refusing to give in to the screaming agony in the muscles of this arms.

"Shepard?" Jack's voice broke him out of his struggle with his own body and he opened his eyes. "Can I, I mean could I... Oh fuck it. I'm no good at apologies, just give her here before you collapse Shepard." Stepping up to him, Jack slide her arms under Tali's body and took her weight out of Shepard's arms. Shepard nodded his thanks and pushed himself off the wall as the lift came to a halt and he moved out of the lift ahead of Jack.  As soon as they exited the lift they saw that the Normandy’s shuttle had just arrived and had began it's landing cycle in front of the doors that Jack had driven the taxi through. Before the shuttle had actually touched down the door swung open and Garrus and Grunt both leapt out and began to run towards them.

"Good way to open a door" said Grunt, casting an eye over the taxi as they reached Shepard and Jack.  He then holstered his shotgun and held out his hands to Jack, "Give her here."

Jack shook her head and held Tali tighter to her chest as she started to move off towards the shuttle. Shepard reached out and placed a restraining arm on Grunt's shoulder, "Let Jack take her Grunt, it's important to her right now." Grunt shrugged and followed Jack back towards the shuttle.

"Okay..." said a bewildered Garrus as he watched them go, "Jack? Tali? What happened in there Commander?"

"Notice the big blue building you landed next to Garrus?" Shepard asked, leaning on his friend.

"You mean the one we are inside of Commander? Yeah I noticed it."

"It is going to explode in about one minute, so do you think you could stop asking pointless questions and move?"

Garrus responded by grabbing Shepard by the arm and half dragging half guiding him towards the shuttle, "Move it is!"

By the time Garrus had dragged the Commander to the shuttle Jack was already on board cradling Tali's head in her lap, a medic already administering to her. Grunt gave Garrus a hand in getting their Commander none to gently into the crowded shuttle and Garrus yelled at the pilot to make like a scalded Pyjack back to the Normandy.

The shuttle had just lifted off when they all felt a ominous rumble throughout the hull. Almost immediately afterwards they also all felt the sudden acceleration of the shuttle as the pilot threw it into a steep climb at maximum engine power.  Shepard pulled himself upright and looked out of the window, with Illium falling away below him, and watched the tower implode in upon itself, sending out a circular tidal wave of dust and debris that flowed around the nearby buildings.

Stepping around the wounded from the restaurant that were laying in stretchers across the shuttle's floor Garrus moved up next to him and placed his hand on Shepard’s shoulder. "Damn, you like to keep it interesting don't you Commander! Mission successful I take it?"

Shepard nodded his head as the cityscape below disappeared and he turned to look at Jack and Tali, "Yes, but at what cost Garrus? For how long can we keep paying the price that is asked?"

Garrus shrugged, "For as long as we must."

Shepard nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What started out in Chapter One as a fun "could I do it" action piece ultimately turned into a character exploration of who Jack is and what she is becoming. This story, I hope, shows the point in Jack's emotional development where she begins to accept that she must, and can, change and that she can be more then what Cerberus made her to be. It will be a long and painful road for Jack, so much guilt to deal with, so much pain to overcome and so much trust that needs to be earned. I may perhaps even travel down that road with Jack a bit at a later date and write some more stories of her.
> 
> To wrap up some minor plot points there were left hanging:
> 
>  
> 
> Tali survived intact and whole thanks to the work of Dr Chakwas, although her sneezes could be heard throughout the engineering level for about 2 weeks afterwards (she spent a long time cleaning her mask).
> 
> Shepard pulled rank as a Spectre and got Illium Security to drop the traffic violations (89 counts of speeding, failing to stop, reckless driving and driving to cause injury and one count of misuse of a vehicle - apparently it is illegal to open a door using a taxi).
> 
> Dr Chakwas managed to save the lives of all 11 people that were sent up to the Normandy.
> 
> The Illusive Man refused to acknowledge that there was an operation on Illium. Jack later mentioned to Tali that she learnt 8 new swear words that she had never heard before while listening to Shepard and the Illusive Man discuss the recent events on Illium.
> 
> Jack kept her word and beat Tali soundly next time they had a girls poker night.
> 
> Shepard kept his word and got resoundingly drunk with Jack on a quiet uninhabited earth-like planet not far from Illium. Neither would discuss what occurred when they returned, other then Jack stating that you should never ever give alcohol to Pyjacks.


End file.
